[caption id=”attachment_2007” align=”aligncenter” width=”480” caption=”Not quite.”]
Among my friends it’s known as the boxer story—the day I ripped a wide hole in the crotch of an old pair of boxers, pulled it over my head, and wore it to the mall with a girlfriend I was desperate to dump. Of course I lacked the courage to break up with her, and of course it seemed easier at the time to wear old boxers as a shirt in a public place, with my arms through the leg holes and the waistband clinging to the top of my stomach. It seemed easier than telling the truth; truth being I no longer cared about anything she had to say, and no amount of sex made her company tolerable.
This was back when I believed compatibility could be discovered like a trail overgrown with vines and brush, and if only we both kept hacking away, one day the path would reveal itself. We had almost nothing in common. She liked music from the _4 A.D. _label and I was strictly a _Sub Pop _guy. She was into tall blonde men and I was 5’8” dark-haired Jew (technically I still am all those things but my dark hair is turning gray). I considered Beringer’s White Zinfandel the best wine I’d ever tasted and she liked anything that got her drunk, as long as it worked quickly and didn’t burn on the way down. But we stuck it out anyway, joined by decent times in bed and a secret affinity for George Michael. George Michael! A chaser to anything grunge, and at one time the heir apparent to Hall and Oates. In 1994, everyone secretly liked George Michael. Trust me on this. Even guys wearing _Ride the Lightning _t-shirts would turn up _Freedom ’90 _if alone in their cars.